Design and assembly of a simple monitor ionization chamber

Abstract

At the Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, Brazil, a new monitor ionization chamber was designed, developed and characterized. This monitor is a parallel-plate type ionization chamber, and it has two sensitive volumes formed by three conductive foils. The chamber body is made of PMMA disks that are positioned outside the primary radiation beams. The pre-operational tests and the response stability tests were performed. The pre-operational tests, as saturation curve, ion collection efficiency, polarity effect and response linearity showed very good results. The response stability tests (repeatability and long-term stability) also showed satisfactory results, within international recommendations. Besides the good results, this ionization chamber is very simple to manufacture, and all materials used in this project are of low-cost and commercially available.